Wrestling: This Must Be Just Like Livin’ in Paradise (And I Don’t Want To Go Home)

by Dave on 12th May 2013

So having posted about 3 weeks ago about women’s wrestling attitudes within the mainstream, I am now the other side of two fantastic weekends of wrestling where primarily it was wrestling by people born with the ‘handicap’ of being female. I think the fact that I was feeling ’empty’ come this Tuesday morning says it all (as I know I have about 2 weeks until my next show and I’m going to have to make do with whatever mainstream rubbish that TNA and WWE decide to put on until then). Basically I have decided I need to win the lottery so I can make watching wrestling my full time occupation.

Anyway onto the first show, I made what will probably be my final trip to Sudbury for Pro Wrestling EVE in what was a very good card, with the results as follows:

Pro Wrestling EVE: Special Edition 3

1. Kay Lee Ray & Erin Angel defeated Shanna & Leah Von Dutch. Angel pinned Von Dutch with a moonsault.
2. Rhia O’Reilly pinned Bete Noire with the Rhiajustment.
3. Amazon Ayesha Ray beat Viper with a choke bomb.
4. Sara-Marie Taylor & Carmel Jacob defeated Kasey & Leah Owens to advance to the final of the Tag Team Championship tournament. Jacob pinned Leah with an Air Raid Crash.
5. Viper pinned Shanna with a Viper bomb.
6. Sara-Marie Taylor beat Bete Noire, Leah Owens & Amazon Ayesha Ray in a 4-way. Taylor pinned Owens with a pumphandle slam.
7. Rhia O’Reilly pinned Erin Angel with the Rhiajustment.
8. Kasey Owens beat Leah Von Dutch with a twisting press.
9. Carmel Jacob defeated Kay Lee Ray in a 2 out of 3 falls match.
– Jacob pinned Ray by reversing a Sunset Flip with the help of Sara-Marie Taylor.
– Ray pinned Jacob immediately afterwards with a schoolgirl.
– Jacob pinned Ray with a hangman’s DDT.
10. Tommy Dreamer beat Joe FX & Sam Slam in a hardcore 3-way. Dreamer pinned Slam with a DDT.
11. Kay Lee Ray won a battle royal.

Having heard of, but never seen Leah Von Dutch before, I was pleased that she didn’t disappoint and she put on an impressive display in a heel outing where she managed to rile up the majority of the crowd alongside Shanna who I love watching. Kay Lee Ray and Erin Angel were the logical victors as this was a quarter final match for the Tag Team Championship and Leah is only over until the end of May.

Rhia showed what I have said for the past 6 months or so in being more and more vicious upon every outing against Bete who after being slightly unsure about back when I first saw her in ICW:FF last year i’ve been won around by. Ayesha and Viper basically clobbered one another in a powerhouse vs. powerhouse match which put Ama Reilly at 2 – 0 against She X. These matches also involved a slightly pissed me coming up with the chant of ‘by later in the evening you mean the next match’ to Dann Read who was announcing (as he had said that the Viper/Ayesha match was ‘scheduled’ for later in the evening). Hopefully we get a final tag match between the two teams to determine the team who will advance to the tag team semi finals, although with Dann Read and his crazy booking style, who knows.

The Glamour Gym, as always, managed to grab a hell of a lot of heel heat pre match by insulting the whole of the crowd and against the Owens twins put on another great match, which included a comedy spot where The Glamour Gym tried to pull a switch-a-roo in spite of not looking anything like one another and then the Owens showed them how it was supposed to happen, before getting beaten down by the Glamour Gym.

Viper squashed Shanna in a short match, which somewhat reestablished Viper as a beast, in spite of her loss earlier in the evening, but sadly loses Shanna some momentum. Shanna cut a promo on the mic afterwards claiming she will win the Queen of the Ring tournament and then challenge for Nikki Storm’s title.

The next match saw the three of a kind tshirt I had created for the Glamour Gym worn by Carmel Jacob, as she managed Sara Marie Taylor to victory against three other opponents and it was thanks to Carmel distracting Ayesha Ray that Sara picked up the pin.

Rhia has put her massive losing streak in EVE behind her and winning this outing against Erin puts her over strongly in preparation for her recently announced contest against Nikki Storm at Queen of the Ring (which should be a great match with Rhia having been all over the US within the last couple of months and Nikki currently being in Japan where both have had good showings by all accounts).

In the first of two seemly messed up finishes this evening Kasey had to hit her finisher twice, due to Referee Chris Roberts counting two on what seemed to be the finish. Leah Von Dutch played a comedy heel to some degree by claiming she didn’t understand the English ways when she was performing illegal moves.

The main event of the EVE match had a couple of quick falls by both competitors, before inevitably spilling out of the ring and some crazy Kay Lee Ray dives including off the bar and an attempted dive down the stairs. The finish to the third fall was messed up yet again as Kay Lee Ray’s shoulder was clearly up, but Kay Lee managed to gain some revenge by hitting a Gory Bomb post match.

The three way between Tommy Dreamer, Jo FX and Sam Slam was entirely pointless and had no business being on the card, ok they brought out a few ‘weapons’ but Dreamer looked stupidly overweight and I didn’t have any reason to emotionally invest in either of the other two competitors. I was shouting ‘let it die’ when the inevitable ECW chant went up and ‘Hey Dreamer, I always preferred New Jack’ to show my disapproval. I honestly don’t think I would have been satisfied unless there had been blood, and even then it would have made the taste in my mouth slightly less sour.

Post match Dreamer invited the EVE roster out and put them over. Shanna flirted with him, before hitting him with a Stunner and the rest of the roster sent him over the top rope before a ‘bye bye Sudbury Battle Royal’ broke out and was won by Kay Lee Ray and washed the previous match away slightly.

Post show I was lucky enough to meet Ted DiBiase who although advertised to be appearing, in the end just did a meet and greet/signing which I was happy enough with as he is one of my favourite wrestlers of all time.

All in all (apart from the mens matches) I was pleased by the final EVE card in Sudbury and it was only a minor preview of what was to come the following week, which was the best card i’ve seen so far this year, with the results below:

ICW: Fierce Females – Luke… Whose Your Da?

Fierce Females Title Tournament Semi-Final
1. Viper pinned Amazon Ayesha Ray with a Michinoku Driver.
Fierce Females Title Tournament Semi-Final
2. Kay Lee Ray beat Rhia O’Reilly with a Swanton Bomb. Viper attacked KLR afterwards.
3. Carmel Jacob defeated Leah Von Dutch with a low DDT.
4. Crazy Mary Dobson pinned Bete Noire with a chair assisted split legged moonsault.
5. Erin Angel pinned Blue Nikita with a Code Red.
6. Sakura Lily, Kasey & Leah Owens beat Sara-Marie Taylor, Lisa Fury & Kirsty Loveign. Leah pinned Kirsty after Loveign missed a Fameasser.
– Fierce Females Title Tournament Final
7. Kay Lee Ray pinned Viper with an inside cradle to win the Fierce Females Scottish Championship.

April Davids was supposed to be in the first match against Viper, but due to injury had to withdraw. Mikey Whiplash came out to announce what was going to happen with regards to Vipers match but then Fiona Fraser came out to verbally berate April Davids, before Viper came out and planted her with a Michinoku Driver. Then Ayesha Ray came out from out of the crowd to attack Viper and they had to be separated by security but clearly wanted to fight. Mikey Whiplash asked Viper if she wanted to do it, and she did, so the bell was rung and the match began with Ayesha announced as Aprils replacement. They had a relatively short match with Viper struggling to lift her opponent at times, and when she finally did it was met with rousing cheers.

Kay Lee Ray and Rhia O’Reilly were allowed time to let their contest tell the story it was supposed to and in spite of some interference by Carmel this had no effect on the result. Kay Lee Ray was attacked post match by Viper in order to set up a clear face/heel divide for later in the evening.

A face Leah Von Dutch faced Carmel in a match where the Canadian managed to get over with minimal effort and was better than her outings the previous weekend. Both girls put on a very solid match that ended with a Carmel victory but also allowed Leah to look strong and there were people cheering for her post match.

As a fan of the odd deathmatch and having some knowledge of Crazy Mary Dobson (protege/fiancee of Mad Man Pondo) the next match was exactly what I expected with crazy spots, like shots to the head, Bete going through a makeshift table and an attack with a staplegun to Mary’s tongue. Womens deathmatches are a niche, within a niche, within a niche so it was nice to see this on a card and Bete impressed me again by giving as good as she got in the match.

Nikita vs. Erin was a solid match with some decent spots, but I honestly think that Shanna would be a better fit for the ICW crowd than Erin (who got the All Star nickname whilst working on the Butlin Camps for ‘All Star’). Erin however poured beer onto her chest post match, which had been chopped quite a bit during the match and this endeared her to the crowd so I may be wrong.

The six woman tag team match was a good tag team match where Kirsty Loveign was managed yet again by James R Kennedy who changed from being abused for looking like Justin Beiber at the last show, to being abused for looking like George Michael. Sakura Lily has improved since I saw her back at the first ICW: FF show and she got the majority of the beat down from the heel team, whilst still managing to get some effective offense in. This was a good match for its position as it allowed the main event to have the feeling it should. Post match Kennedy was shouting at Kirsty, whilst the crowd was imploring her to kick him. She left dejected, just after him.

Kay Lee Ray sold the attack from earlier in the evening as she made her entrance to the ring and Viper took advantage, but Ray fought back with everything she had only to be cut off by Carmel who attacked her. Security split the two up and ejected Carmel from the building. After this Viper and Kay Lee battled over the railings and to the upper level of the Garage, and Fiona Fraser followed them and attacked Viper, bringing her back down to the lower level and this was broken up by performing a dive onto them from the upper level. As they returned to the ring they both attempted to finish the match and Viper got a chair before attempting to hit KLR with it. KLR dropkicked her backwards which pushed her into the referee and downed the referee. Viper hit KLR with a face first electric chair drop and went for a pin, but with the referee down there was no one able to count. KLR caught Viper with an inside cradle by the time the referee was conscious and got the pinfall to win the ICW:FF title. Post match both competitors hugged and were greeted by cheers from all the fans.

The crowd was fantastic and it was good to catch up with the hardcore crew of 7/8 travelling fans from England and Germany who I usually see at EVE, and 4 of us stayed for the following nights main ICW show which I will cover in slightly less detail as I went before the last couple of matches were over (my feet were dead from being on them for most of the day).

1. Noam Dar defeats Solar by Submission
2. ICW Tag Team Championship – The Bucky Boys defeat The Sumerian Death Squad by Pinfall. After the match, The Sumerian Death Squad attacked The Bucky Boys, Lambrini & Wee Man before leaving with the ICW Tag Team Championship.
3. Grado defeats Lewis Girvan by Pinfall. Sara, Carmel, The Owens Twins, Wolfgang, Joe Coffey & Andy Wild all got involved in the match.
4. The Polo Lounge – Jackie Polo agrees to face Johnny Moss on June 9th with the stipulation that if he wins, he’ll face Mark Dallas in a match and control of ICW will be at stake.
5. Falls Count Anywhere Triple Threat – Jack Jester defeats Jimmy Havoc & ‘Crazy’ Mary Dobson by Pinfall.
6. ‘The Teen Sensation’ Christopher & Kenneth defeat Fight Club by Pinfall.
7. Fergal Devitt defeats BT Gunn by Pinfall.
8. Zero-G Championship Triple Threat – Wolfgang defeats Andy Wild & Joe Coffey to retain the Zero-G Championship. Joe Coffey walked out of the match.
9. ICW Heavyweight Championship – Mikey Whiplash defeats Red Lightning by Pinfall to become the NEW ICW Heavyweight Champion *NEW CHAMPION*
Following the main event, Joe Coffey comes to the ring and turns on former #SaveProWrestling associate Red Lightning. Mark Dallas then appears and fires Red Lightning from ICW.

Short round up on this: Grado may just have the best entrance I have seen, dancing to Madonna’s Like a Prayer and Wrestling like Mad Man Manson for the Adult market he is a great draw and one of the more entertaining people I had heard about but never seen. Jack Jester versus Jimmy Havoc and Crazy Mary Dobson was a kick ass hardcore match which had all sorts of crazy spots, including Mary getting thrown over the railing from the top level of the Garage into the crowd below and various staplegun shots. I will hold my hand up that this show wasn’t as good as the other 2 but mainly because I was pretty much dead from having had to keep myself occupied for 8 hours after checking out of my hotel that evening.

Having had such a kick ass couple of weekends I just wish I hadn’t had to return to work or ‘real life’ this week and just can’t wait to go to my next show in 2 weeks time.

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